There has been an increasing awareness in recent years of the value of identification and monitoring of dairy cattle, such as, for instance, to determine a cow's health and condition, estrus detection, amount of nourishment required and ability to yield milk. In larger herds, such systems for identification and activity monitoring virtually necessitate some automatic means of identification and recording of data for each cow. Sophisticated sensing systems have been devised which are capable of accomplishing the foregoing and where both identification and transmission of data may be done remotely and automatically. Representative approaches are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. to Rodrian 4,129,855 and 4,247,758 in which the cow is equipped with a transponder including a motion sensor so that when the animal is within the range of a transceiver, the transponder is activated to transmit data for identification of the animal and its number of movements over a given time period. Such information either may be recorded or displayed, or a combination of both, through a suitable microprocessor or other type of data processing system.
The foregoing and other identification/monitoring systems have highlighted the need for an effective and dependable method and means of fastening the transponder unit or other identification means to the dairy cow so that it can be rapidly but securely attached to the cow in the field. In the past, various types of belt or loop fasteners have been devised and employed to encircle a portion of the animal, such as, its leg or neck. Typical of such approaches is that employed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,886 to Hamm which discloses a Velcro attachment for a legmounted distance measuring band. IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin Volume 20, No. 11D dated April, 1978 is directed to a band or strap which can be permanently attached to an animal by puncturing the skin or ear to secure the strap in place.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,839 to Skeggs discloses a belt-type fastener specifically designed to be releasably attached around the belly portion of an animal. U.S. Pat. No. 3,336,530 to Sloan et al discloses a collar which similarly employs a belt-type fastener while U.S. Pat. No. 3,059,359 to Goldammer et al is directed more to a spring-type fastener in which a stud secured to one end of a bracelet is insertable through one of a series of openings at the opposite end of the bracelet and held in place by a foldable tab. Other representative U.S. Pat. Nos. are: 3,027,665 to St. John, C. and 3,898,886 to Hamm, A. B.
Further, it has been proposed to employ identification devices on a flexible plastic band which is intended to be wrapped around the article to be marked. One such approach is disclosed in German Pat. No. 2,800,082 and which is intended for use primarily as a means of identification of persons in a hospital.